Wisconsin: Walker makes it harder for candidates to get a recount in close races<read>

Gov. Scott Walker has made it harder to ask for an election recount in Wisconsin. Walker last week signed into law a bill introduced in reaction to Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein’s 2016 recount request in Wisconsin after she finished a distant fourth. Under the new law, only candidates who trail the winner by 1 percentage point or less in statewide elections could seek a recount. If that had been in effect last year, Democrat Hillary Clinton could have requested a recount since she finished within that margin, losing the state by only 22,000 votes. But Stein would have been barred. Democrats argued against the change, saying if candidates want to pay for a recount they should be allowed to pursue it. Stein paid for the Wisconsin recount.

“As someone with great sentimental attachment to the Republican Party, as I joined as the party of Goldwater, both parties have engaged in voting machine manipulation,” Stone wrote. “Nowhere in the country has this been more true than Wisconsin, where there are strong indications that Scott Walker and the Reince Priebus machine rigged as many as five elections including the defeat of a Walker recall election.”

Editorial: What is wrong with this picture? We don’t for a second believe Roger Stone. Yet, we have no reason to believe Scott Walker or Wisconsin election integrity. What is needed is transparent and publicly verifiable elections so that we do not need to trust anyone.